Today’s edition of quick hits:
* This is especially important in the event of a possible presidential pardon: “The Manhattan district attorney’s office is moving forward in preparing a case against Paul Manafort in connection with state tax and bank fraud-related charges, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.”
* I’m very glad I didn’t write a single word this week about the recent rumors about the imminent delivery of a Mueller report: “Attorney General William Barr will not receive the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller by the end of next week, says a senior Justice Department official.”
* The latest Trump cabinet mess: “Prosecutors have begun presenting evidence to a grand jury in Washington in their probe of whether former interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators, according to two individuals briefed on the matter.”
* Venezuela: “Venezuelan soldiers opened fire on a group of civilians attempting to keep open a segment of the southern border with Brazil for deliveries of humanitarian aid, causing multiple injuries and the first fatalities of a massive opposition operation meant to deliver international relief to this devastated South American country, according to eyewitnesses and community leaders.”
* Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) “wore a Confederate uniform in a photo published in his 1980 college yearbook, the Tennessean newspaper reported Thursday, in the latest instance of a state leader coming under scrutiny for past actions that critics have decried as racially insensitive.”
* It’s almost as if the president is unpopular in some parts of the country: “On Election Day 2016, six residential buildings called Trump Place stood in a row on Manhattan’s Upper West Side — a legacy of Donald Trump’s efforts to develop that site and a sign of the Trump name’s enduring value in New York. Soon, Trump’s name will be gone from all of them.”
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."